Short Summary

Sixty-eight people are known to have died - and hundreds more injured - when an express train ploughed into a goods train in Pakistan at five a.

Description

Sixty-eight people are known to have died - and hundreds more injured - when an express train ploughed into a goods train in Pakistan at five a.m. yesterday (Monday) morning. The accident occurred as the Peshawar-Karachi express (known as the Tezrac reached the station at Liaquatpur near Bahawalpur, nearly 500 miles (800 kilometers) southeast of Rawalpindi. The goods train was stopped in the station when the 13-carriage passenger train hit it.

While investigations are under way, railway authorities have announced that compensation will be paid to the relatives of the dead. In the meantime, police have taken into custody the Assistant Station Master and Pointsman of Liaquatpur station, and the driver and the fireman of the Tezrao.

It is the worst rail accident in Pakistan history. The previous worst occurred ten years ago near Karachi, when about 12 people were killed and one hundred injured.